War ace, 96, steps up for air charity
A WAR hero aged 96 is following in the fundraising footsteps of Captain Tom Moore by climbing 1,000 steps.
Flight Lieutenant Des Curtis notched up 70 wartime sorties as a navigator and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
He now aims to scale the five storeys of his block of flats each day until he achieves his milestone onVE Day this week.
The RAF veteran from Bournemouth began on April 25 and tackles the 80 steps in one go, even though he admits this leaves him “out of puff”.
He has now chalked up 800 and on Friday will climb the steps twice in memory of pals killed in the war.
Des said: “I was the lucky one [to survive] so it will be my way to pay my respects to them.”
He hopes to raise £4,000 for the Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance – the cost of a mission – and has more than £500.
The veteran called himself
Mark Reynolds
“an energetic supporter” of the charity and for the past three years has volunteered with talks for them.
But he adds: “That is not possible at the moment so I wanted to think about another way to support them.
“I can’t walk any great distance particularly on the uneven pavement around here so my exercise is climbing stairs.”
Des’s Mosquito bomber sank a German U-boat off France in March 1944 – but he later became friends with Raimond Teisler, the German skipper.The Briton’s exploits were later immortalised on the front page of boys’ adventure comicVictor.
The widower and grandfather said he had been “amazed” watching Capt Tom raise £32million for the NHS.
●●To support Des go to dsairambulance.org.uk/ fundraisers and type in Des.